


Hope Eyrie

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Akallabêth/Last Alliance, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:19:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4221475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A different look at the Fall of Numenor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope Eyrie

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

Author's Note: the title is taken from a song by the same name, by Leslie  
Fish. I highly recommend it. That song and this story are very closely  
tied.

The last line is taken from the Silmarillion, however I had to translate it  
back to English, so it's probably not an exact quote.

 

 

Hope Eyrie

A tale of Numenore of the West.

As told in the lost tales of the Silmarillion, as translated by J. R. R.  
Tolkien

 

 

I feel it in my bones; I am no longer young as I was. I feel it in every  
breath that grows harder and harder to draw, I feel it in every muscle that  
would not obey, in hands no longer skillful and feet no longer swift. I  
feel it in the blood no longer burning in my veins, for all its majesty and  
nobility it dwindles, I feel it in the beatings of my traitorous heart.

I am no longer young as I was. My eyes and ears tell me so much as I gaze  
over the splendor of Numenor.

I know not how long I have left. Days always seemed meaningless, here in  
the splendor of the kingdom we have built, here in the glory of  
Westernesse, the beauty of Numenor. It is spread in all its glory before  
me, out of my high window down to the sea, white towers, long streets laid  
with gems, windows open to the Western Winds, and the King's Tower. I see  
it all through eyes that grow dim. For the first time I see the shadows the  
sun over our wondrous land has no power to banish, in the dark thoughts  
dwelling in my mind the light of stars has no strength to dispel.

It is a beautiful, magnificent kingdom, Numenor of my fathers, Numenor of  
the west. What beauty in the lands our ancestors left behind can compare?  
They grow dark, the Middle Lands, they grow weary and old, and Numenor  
stands, proud, beautiful, everlasting.

Perfect.

So I thought.

But now my chest is heavy and my head is held down, and I almost seem to  
hear my bones creak as I walk, my hands trembling, my skin wrinkled. Old  
age is claiming me, so soon, so soon...

Most hours of the day and long into the night I sit in my window. I gaze  
outside at proud Numenor, thinking that if I look over the city of plenty,  
of beauty, of life, any of the three would return to my withering limbs.  
Every day I am met again with the truth as I lie down, too tired to look  
any more into the west. Numenor will not let me live forever.

But the West may.

Of late, I have often been plagued by such thoughts.

I say plagued, and not lightly. For from the West is Man banned forever, no  
matter how wondrous all that we have made, how close we come to the glory  
of the Eldar of old. No matter how hard we have labored to heal the dying  
lands in the east, how often we may go up to the Pillar of Heaven under the  
open sky. The Doom of Men breaths down our necks, constantly, its breath is  
freezing cold. I can feel it growing nearer, sucking the life from my old  
body, this old shell that I am not yet, not ever, content to leave behind.

The West is barred to us, the immortal lands, and I used to think it just.

I was young once, foolish.

But I have lived too long in Numenor of the west to believe any such  
notions justified.

All day I sit here by the window and look outside, look upon the city, then  
look upon the sea. It is beautiful, my Numenor, it and its people deserve  
every grace, every praise, every honor. It and its people deserve eternity.

Numenor must stand forever - its people must live forever.

But such thoughts were never of any use. In the West lie the Undying Lands,  
where the light we yearn for is but a trifle to the accursed Eldar. Here in  
Numenor in the east, the shadows grow longer.

I can feel them; I can feel them now.

I do not know how long before the shadow falls over me.

Once I believed the shadow would never come, once I was young in the most  
beautiful city there had ever been and there will ever be. Once the Doom of  
Men, as any doom at all, seemed unreal, seemed never to come. What could be  
denied me in Numenor?

Nothing was denied me, nothing but hope.

But today, today I see hope anew.

I see hope in the fleet of ships assembling in the white harbor of Numenor.  
I see the King's flag unfurled upon the high mast in the rich wind. I see  
there on the mast young men, watching out to the west with eager, fearless  
eyes.

Fearless eyes, filled with anticipation rather than longing, rather than  
pain.

Rather than despair.

And I see the fleet grow daily. And now I do little but look at it.

Soon it will sail, very soon. I am confident I will be here to see it sail.  
I will be here to call out farewells to the mariners in their bold journey.  
I will be there to look closely upon the golden ships as they set said to  
golden shores. I will be there to look upon the magnificent Ar-Pharazon ere  
he commands them take leave. I will be there to hear the horns blow. I will  
be there in the docks to feel the sea wind on my face and feel young again  
as Man goes out to conquer eternity.

And I will be here when they will come back, and never need fear nor  
despair again.

And here I shall remain, in Numenor that I love forever.

Now I sit here as clouds gather slowly in the horizon, but no clouds will  
halt our quest. When the sun will rise the ships will be on their way, they  
will sail with the first rays of dawn, signaling it, the dawn of the new  
age for Man. No more fear, no more death, no more Dooms.

I sit here and look with hope upon Numenor, my home, the home of the people  
who dared seek what is theirs by right, who dared seek break the bonds cast  
unjustly upon them, who dare try and be more.

I sit here in the golden sunset over Numenor as night comes, and I do not  
fear the night.

Darkness falls slowly, but I no longer fear it. With a smile upon my face,  
I rise from my chair and turn to walk to my room. My limbs are stiff, my  
stance is bent, no longer proud, but my forgotten pride lies there in the  
harbor. I can see it...

And I can hear the sound of wings.

I turn around quickly, in a move once agile, but now weak. I seek to rush  
to the window, but I fall to the hard floor, my body failing me at this  
hour, at this last desperate hour. I look down at the floor, but I do not  
truly see. I do not truly hear. Gasping, sobbing, I feel the weight of  
darkness fall upon me, the floor cold under my useless shell, a sense of  
shattering. I do not truly care, but I know, with the breaking thunder in  
the sky, with the darkness descending, with dreams breaking, crashing upon  
the golden shores of my home, of a sudden, I know.

Manwe's eagles come upon Numenor.

 

 

~~End~~

 

 

Save perhaps the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, not a single story in the  
Silmarillion is as tragic as the Fall of Numenor. It is a story of mankind  
reaching out for the thing it craves perhaps most of all, only to be denied  
it and punished by the gods for daring to try.

Some may say - the good Professor Tolkien being one of those - that the  
Numenoreans were justly punished, that they should never have tried to  
exceed the limits placed upon them by their very nature.

Our *very nature* is to try to be more than what we are.

I will not forget Numenor, nor will I ever stop trying.


End file.
